The Rabbinic Mind: Drinking on Purim
We all know that there is some kind of obligation to drink alcoholic beverages on Purim. What are the requirements of this obligation? And the boundaries? Join Rabbi Yitzhak Zuriel and explore the sources in the gemara and later writings to try to uncover answers to these questions.
The Rabbinic Mind: Drinking on Purim: Why do we drink? How much drinking is required?
In this first of our two sessions on the topic of drinking on Purim, we will learn first the primary source from the gemara in Masechet Megilah, containing first a seemingly straightforward statement of halacha followed by a shocking story. Then we will learn the explanations of two commentaries to the Talmud, one a rishon (the Meiri), and the second a 19th century acharon (the Ben Ish Chai). While both of them discuss the halacha, they explicitly pay close attention to the peshat meaning of the sugya, as we will see. (In session 2 we will look in the literature of the poskim and codifiers of halacha to see if we can find a bottom line regarding how we should conduct ourselves.)
For your convenience I have posted here some of the sources we will encounter in this session.
The Rabbinic Mind: Drinking on Purim: Approaches of the Poskim
In this second and last session about drinking on Purim, we will shift our attention from explanations of the gemara to the pesak literature and explore a few of the approaches of the poskim to the question of whether drinking on Purim is truly an obligation and if so what are the limits of it.
For your convenience I have posted here the sources that we will learn in this session.
Rabbi Yitzhak Zuriel has been enjoying guiding students in how to learn and understand Talmud at WebYeshiva.org since its founding. He began his teaching career as a teacher and educational director at Michlelet Bruria in the 1980s. For over 20 years, he has been working as a software engineer in Jerusalem, and during that time has been an editor and contributor to the company NDS's Torah journal, Chiddushei Torah@NDS, that was published annually from 1996-2014 . He and his wife reside in Ma'ale Adumim and are parents to five children and have many grandchildren.